Empty folders on Seagate Expansion 5TB HDD

[svendleir]

I use a seagate expansion 5tb HDD on which I put my mp4 movies so I can watch them on a Samsung tv. Since yesterday, when I add movies to the HDD they show up as empty folders on my Samsung TV. All the movies I ever added before yesterday play just fine. It's only the movies that I added since yesterday that show up as empty folders on my samsung tv. The movies play perfect on pc. When I copy a movie from my seagate expansion HDD to another Seagate expansion hdd it plays fine as well on my samsung tv. Does anybody have an idea what could be wrong?

[kamil40013]

Are the new videos in the same format as the old ones ? You can try to copy new movies to another HDD or USB to see if you have problem with drive or file.

[svendleir]

yes, same format. Every time I hook up the HDD to the tv some more movies show as empty maps. They work perfect on another HDD and perfect on PC. It's weird because some movies work after a few times of unplugging and replugging the HDD and others show up as empty maps. I'm baffled

[kamil40013]

@svendleir, I think you can try to change HDD cable or format whole HDD and copy files to it again.

[svendleir · Accepted solution]

I found a solution. I removed my movies out of their folder. The I deleted the empty folder and made a new folder with the same name, put the movie files back in the new folder. Everything works again now.

[svendleir]

Problem is back today. And my previous trick doesn't work anymore. Frustrating.

[Customernumber5]

Did you find a solution? 

I have a similar problem: Some folders appear empty even though they contain videos (typically 5 to 25 files per folder). But if I cut the videos out of these folders and paste them into the root of the HDD, the TV can read them without any problem. And some folders have folders inside and I can read the videos inside without issues.

These problematic folders are neither more populated nor have unusual names compared to the ones that work fine, so I’m struggling to understand the cause of this issue.